In my above-referenced copending patent application, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein, there is described a new and improved medical appliance disposal container which is designed to meet or exceed requirements set forth in advisories issued by public health service organizations, such as the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Ga., governing the disposal of medical waste (including sharp instruments, such as scalpels and syringes). These advisories state that such containers must be rigid, leakproof and puncture resistant.
As pointed out in that application, many of the medical waste material containers that are currently employed by the medical community are typically multi-piece plastic structures, usually of 'snap together' construction, which not only are susceptible to leaks at their joints, but often readily come apart, spilling their contents, when subjected to 'trash removal' type of handling by hospital custodial personnel. Moreover, because hospital regulations often require destruction by incineration, burning containers made substantially entirely of plastic can cause the emission of considerable quantities of toxic pollutants, such as HCl and dioxins.
To successfully solve these problems the medical appliance disposal container described in my above-referenced application has a unitary body structure formed of a substantially flat sheet of laminated layers of compact, non-toxic, fibrous material, such as high bond strength (on the order of 500 Mullen) fiberboard, which is effectively impermeable to needle punctures. This laminated sheet structure is also provided, preferably at least within its interior, with one or more thin (on the order of one to several mils) pliable layers of an absorption resistant material, such as polyethylene, that forms a liquid barrier and thereby prevents the passage of fluid through the entirety of the fibrous material and thus serves to maintain the integrity and strength of the wall structure of the container.
In the course of manufacture of the container, the sheet material is divided into a plurality of foldable panels that are scored, wrapped at corners and adhesively joined together to define a bottom, sidewalls and a top of the body structure. The panels are scored along lines spaced apart from folded edges, so as to form beads in the sheet material that are separated from the corners of folds, whereby edges of the panels abut against corners of the folds and ensure a snug, leakproof fit of the panels.
In accordance with one of the embodiments of the container (which may be substantially cube or square-shaped), an outer top panel of the container is provided with a generally circular aperture, from which a narrow, generally triangular or 'V'-shaped cut-out region extends. An interior top panel, directly beneath the outer top panel, has a region that is sectioned into wedge-shaped flaps, that are bent downwardly into the container. A smaller, central circular aperture in the interior to panel beneath the outer top panel defines the interior edge of the wedge-shaped flaps. The wedge-shaped flaps are bent inwardly from a slit score line, which follows the generally circular shape of the aperture in the outer top panel of the container. The slit score line is slightly behind the lip of the outer top panel and causes the wedge shape tabs to remain in their generally downwardly bent condition and a pair of adjacent, downwardly bent flaps beneath the 'V'-shaped cut-out region form a narrow slot which extends from the central aperture to the vertex of the 'V'-shaped region to provide a converging 'crimping' region whereat needles may be bent when discarding a syringe.
The outer top panel also has a closure tab the perimeter of which is coincident with the circular/'V'-shaped opening in the outer top panel and extends from a slit score along a line at a fold location of the closure tab. The slit score causes the closure tab to be retained in a generally upwardly or outwardly extending condition. The score line in the outer top panel is relatively short, so that the closure tab, when urged down into its original position, will not tend to resist remaining in the horizontal position and can be readily sealed by an overlying plastic label.